Month: January 2013

The Hidden History of Social Security: A job for only the Tea Party to fix

 

When critics of the Tea Party point and say that they (the Tea Party) “resist everything, and are stuck in the past,” the context for what Tea Party members are weary of is never explored.  The issue of why they are against most new laws, every act of the political do-gooder, and insist on a return to American founding principles gets lost in the debate because more often than not the critics have no sense of history and are limited in knowledge to the shallow depths of knowledge in their own lifetimes. The more issues of governance is explored, the more evident it becomes that without a group of patriots who function not out of a love for political power, a thinly disguised grab for power, networking connections, or just a desire to be socially destructive, that politics in a democratic republic deteriorate quickly without such a presence.  There needs to a group in America that can use wisdom and a firm adherence to The American Constitution to keep politics as honest as possible.   Without such wisdom, without the prying eyes of a neutral party, all the well intended programs that government invents today become tomorrow’s tyranny, and now that there is a clear history in America, it is now clear that all laws created by government end up becoming monsters of self fulfilled destruction shortly after passage.

 

For proof of how slowly, and how destructive an idea created by government can become a social monstrosity, look no further than the Social Security system and witness the gradual erosion of that socialist oriented program which should have never of happened.  These things do not become terrors in one lifetime, but over two or three lifetimes, so many of the laws created within the last 20 years in government cannot yet be measured.  In that context, read the below history of Social Security, and take note of why the Tea Party is a needed–why political skepticism should be valued so that American politics can avoid a peril similar to the fall of the Roman Empire, the decline of English Imperialism, or the decline of Greek society.  The decline of American society will occur without addressing the erosion of moral order currently embracing The United States or a return to Constitutional principles.  And to date, it is the Tea Party that is committed to returning America to the formula that made the greatest nation on the face of the Earth over all of human history. Such a formula is valuable, and needs careful adherence.  So study carefully the below history of Social Security to see how quickly it became one of the most corrosive socialist programs the world has yet seen. 

Social Security Cards up until the 1980s expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for identification purposes. Since nearly everyone in the United States now has a number, it became convenient to use it anyway and the message, NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION, was removed.

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised: 1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary, No longer Voluntary.

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program, Now 7.65% on the first $90,000.

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,  No longer tax deductible.

4.) That the money the participants put into the independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and, Under Johnson the money was moved to The General Fund and Spent.

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income. Under Clinton & Gore Up to 85% of your Social Security can be Taxed Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put away’ — you may be interested in the following:

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.  

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.   

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the  US  

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.    Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it.

The same kind of distortion will happen with Obama Care, it has already happened with Medicare, and is present in every program that has the government’s name tag on it.  Now that the government created Social Security—which was an obvious—and costly mistake, they have tried to correct the error with more rules, which has only dug the hole deeper.  The only way to fix the problem of Social Security would be to reset the political system before the failure occurred, and this is what the Tea Party is starting to advocate in response to the many errors that are beginning to show up as these socialist programs are beginning to fail.  The position may be unpopular, but it is the desire to come up with a populist solution that created Social Security in the first place and has made it a mandatory program that is used for personal identification tracking and an extraordinary pay check contributions at 7.65%.  At the rate of decline that Social Security has deteriorated in just 70 years, it is obvious that 70 more years will lead to a total collapse of that particular program.  After all, the American demographic is changing.  People are living longer, the young people are not getting married at age 19 and staying married for 50 years like they did when Social Security was created—so socially the adult population of tomorrow will be much more unstable, and not able to sustain Social Security without it encompassing even more than the current contribution rate.  So there are copious amounts of evidence that Social Security will change much more radically in the coming years than it has in the past—which is quite a bit—because of the decline in social quality of the participants. 

 

Social Security is just one example of a program that started with good intentions, as it was a direct response to the Red Decade of the 1930’s push for communism, but quickly degenerated into a corrosive social element that most of American society is addicted to.  Stating that such a program should be abolished or radically reformed at a minimum is the task of scholarly groups like the Tea Party who are committed to education above radical protest and social unrest to move society in the proper direction.  But it will make factions of society very upset because many of them have signed their name behind the support of more programs like Social Security and if such a thing were ever abolished, it would mean that their lives have little meaning—because that is at the heart behind most new laws, small-minded men and women looking for a way to leave behind a legacy—a way for future generations to think fondly of their time on planet Earth.  That is not a good reason to protect a program that is functionally against everything that being an American is supposed to represent—self reliance.  Going against that current will be unpopular, but often the truth usually is.  But that doesn’t make the action invalid.  Instead—it’s quite the opposite. 

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

 

The Next Great War: Why America has so many guns–and it needs them

I’m waiting patiently for the revolution to start.  When it happens if I’m the only one fighting, that’s fine—but somehow I think that won’t be the case.  Once other people see one or two people resisting the encroachment of perpetual statism happening in The United States as of 2013, they will join like others have in the past during the American Revolution and the Civil War.  Whatever we call this next war within America, I will be one of the first to respond to the force that is sure to be applied and I can’t wait.  I love history and we are living history.  Now—before I elaborate, look at this next video and study the foolish position of the presented actors when the editor took the comments they made favoring more gun control and compared them to the kinds of films those same actors have made which feature gun violence.  The hypocrisy is obvious, but is done in this video with a comic flare that should be noted. 

 

 

Actors are paid to say whatever appears in their scripts.  If the script says to commit violence, they act it out for the cameras.  If it tells them to get naked and have sex with perfect strangers in front of a crew of 50 or more people—they do it.  And if the script tells them to come out against gun violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, they do it.  (Sandy Hook was a false flag by the way.  End of story—CLICK HERE for more.) So the opinions of these actors mean nothing—they are not leaders, or spokesmen for America.   They are actors who don’t have thoughts of their own.  They are like parrots; they repeat what they are told to say when they are told to say it.  I can affirm that from first hand experience.  Actors are not bad people, but they are not great thinkers or philosophers either—and are unqualified to give any opinions of worth.   They are paid well to fill a role and to not question that role. 

 

Guns are one of the biggest parts of American culture and that isn’t going to change.  The reason that the movies those actors play in feature so many guns is because Americans love guns.  Americans like to see guns shooting.  They like knowing they have them in their bedrooms.  They like plot lines that have guns in them, and Hollywood knows it—which is why they make movies that feature gun violence.  If Hollywood tried to change that trend, they would loose billions of dollars at the box office—so taking violence out of movies will not happen.  People are not going to pay $15 dollars a ticket to watch people talk about their problems.  They want to see stuff blow up, and they want to see heroes save the day with guns. 

 

Hollywood doesn’t really believe half the garbage that they advocate through donations to the Democratic Party, but they feed money to those statism monsters to keep the idiots from passing laws that will hurt Hollywood’s ability to make money.  Hollywood simply pays the troll by sending their actors out to give public messages making the statism advocates happy—which is why those mindless actors came out against gun violence, while they make their livings advocating it.  The message is just as hypocritical as a pornography actress coming out publicly in favor of sex only after marriage in a strictly monogamous relationship.  Her words are worthless because of what she does for a living. 

 

Guns are a fact in America and the enemies of American sovereignty are the ones who want disarmament for the same reason that it has always occurred—a potential for invasion and the capture of national resources.  There are enemies who want to control America both foreign and domestic and you can tell who they are because they advocate removal of guns from our society. For them it’s a tactical maneuver not a moral one.  For the global statism power grabbers using the United Nations as their personal army behind a façade of peace, they have no hope of pulling The United States into the global fold of power so long as private citizens have so many guns.  There is not a utopian desire for global peace by these people.  It hasn’t happened in over 100,000 of human development and it won’t leave the mind of man in the next 100,000 years no matter how pompous the progressive academics wish to believe such a thing possible.  The way to curb violence is with more guns, not less because the threats to our nation are not outwardly obvious, but instead devious. 

 

Just to put things in perspective as to why America is being targeted from across the two big ponds is that a potential invader of American resources must not only defeat the American military, but the American people also.  For instance if you took just registered deer hunters in the state of Wisconsin and assumed that each of them possessed only one gun each, their number alone would exceed the guns possessed in Iran, France and Germany combined.  That is a lot of guns, and it makes it very difficult for a military general to plan any sort of military maneuver against America.  There are enough guns in just one state to hold off an entire army from those three countries.  But states like Michigan and Pennsylvania outnumber Wisconsin in registered deer hunters.  There are enough guns in just those three states to hold off an invasion from all of Europe making a direct attack against America impossible.  So they are forced to attack America indirectly—through The United Nations with regulation, taxation, and treaties. Yet even with all the guns in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania a murder with guns is very rare in the Midwest.  It is only in the big cities like Detroit, Philadelphia and Green Bay where statism is strongest that gun violence is worst.  There are a lot of homes in my Ohio neighborhood with guns and nobody shoots each other when we get angry. 

 

I know for a fact that guns make a peaceful difference because I’ve seen it first hand many times over. I once took a bet to walk from Central Parkway to the University of Cincinnati up Vine Street back when it was one of the most violent areas in the city.  I walked the whole distance past drug dealers, hookers, pimps, and various thugs without a single act of violence against me.  I did the same in downtown Washington D.C.  I walked five blocks down K-Street at 3 A.M. then up four blocks to the north.  Along the way I passed one car that had been overturned and was on fire from violence that had occurred just 20 minutes before I passed by.  No police or fire fighters came until dawn when the thugs went to bed and the politicians traded positions on those same streets.  Not a single incident happened to me—because all the goons, the punks, and creeps who roamed the streets at night looking for a victim thought I was armed.  I wasn’t armed with a gun—because if I did get into trouble, I didn’t want the added complication.  But thugs know by the look in your eye that you are armed, whether it is with a firearm, or the internal knowledge that you can handle yourself in any situation.  That assurance is the key to personal and national freedom.  Americans know deep in their hearts that they outnumber the entire army of North Korea, Japan, China, Germany, Russia, England, France Australia or the entire continent of Africa, so they don’t worry about an attack from any of those countries.  The reason we can all travel to the mall and buy goods without worrying about a terrorist bombing routinely is because we have guns.  The reason that many companies wish to do business in America in spite of the extraordinarily high taxes is because we have a stable political climate because guns force everyone to keep on the up and up.  Guns keep our own military in line—making sure they stay on the side of the tax payers instead of aligning with statist power grabbers.  It is because of the gun that we are safe in America from all enemies.  Not just made up propaganda targets.

 

The domestic enemies in America are those who advocate gun control, because it is those people who wish to alter the American Constitution, and wish to disarm The United States to fulfill the wishes within The United Nations of global disarmament, and I consider that type of rhetoric to be an attack on my sovereignty within my nation.  Those power grabbing people will not go away—they will continue to encroach themselves upon our American lifestyle using every tragedy as a platform for their message of war through peace.  That’s what is behind the Hollywood message for gun control.  That is what is behind the entire gun control argument and those who cannot see such deplorable acts are naive—and sorry to say—stupid.   

 

When war happens, I will be there to fight for The Constitution specifically The Second Amendment—because they are coming after our guns.  They will use the IRS, the ATF, Homeland Security, local law enforcement, TSA, the FBI, the CIA, the National Guard to come after those of us who stand against statism.  The only thing that keeps war from breaking out right now is the knowledge that we all have guns.  We sit on the knowledge that we can defend ourselves should the unthinkable happen.  If gun laws are created that buys these guns back, or confiscates them entirely, that security will go away, and that is when the next war will erupt.  And when it does, I’m ready and looking forward to meeting many of you in person.  The country does not rest on the shoulders of some politician in Washington, or some 23 year-old girl who will take her top off for millions of people then lecture us about how we should support more gun control.  Our freedoms rest behind the barrel of a gun and are only as strong as the number of them that are in houses all across the nation.  When guns are threatened by domestic enemies, that is the start of the next war within the states.  The first fire of that war will be when authorities try to take those guns and learn the tragic result of that arrogant miscalculation. 

I’m with you Ted. It might be you me, and a handful of people, but it will be enough.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Lakota Top Story of 2012: ‘West Chester Buzz’ and ‘The Enquirer’ beg for food

If you ever wondered why our current government is so screwed up all one needs to do is look at the kind of institutions that instruct our society and study how they behave when confronted with trouble.  It is not hard to discover the root of the deteriorating rot that infests anything that is attached to government, and public schools are “government schools.”  They believe that they function outside the rules of reality because they live off of tax money which is collected on their behalf under force—and they fight over that money like dogs over a bone.  And their collective intelligence is just as proficient as the only concern they have is to fill their bellies so they can live five more minutes before they are begging for another bone.

In my local community of West Chester it has been well-known that I have spent the last couple of years fighting the stupidity of the blind tax and spend actions of the Lakota school district—which I attended as a kid.  Many, because I went to the school, believe that I should automatically support anything that Lakota does because I’m an “alumni” or something.  I hear the same type of ignorance from fools who blindly support their colleges because as adults they love the sports program—never connecting the dots that it is in such follies that many evils are conducted.  Those actions are forms of collectivism which I reject entirely.  At Lakota, they have refused to acknowledge that the cause of their funding problems is that they are like rabid dogs begging for food at the dinner table blindly hungry for more and more money to consume never connecting their actions to their hunger—as if the two weren’t connected.  Then to make matters worse, there are the apologists who try to sneak food under the table even when the owner of the dogs tell those apologists not to—because it makes the dogs even hungrier, and misbehave more often.  Such is the role of the local newspapers against the wishes of the taxpayers.

In the West Chester Buzz—a local arm of the Cincinnati Enqurier, they recently did a feature naming the top 12 stories of 2012.  Among them were the Mitt Romney rally that took place just before the election, and the announcement of the Liberty Way entertainment/shopping complex, which seemed like very reasonable community minded features.  But guess what number one was?  Out of all the stories that occurred in a community of over 100,000 residents over an entire year—can you imagine dear reader what the number one story was?    It was an article about Lakota’s budget problems featuring a March 12th article breaking down the massive cuts and layoffs the district had to make because of three tax increases that had been shot down at the ballot box, led by myself.  This article appeared just two days before The Enquirer did a “hit piece” on me personally to attempt to remove me from the debate—because nobody could answer the points I brought up. (CLICK FOR REVIEW) which goes a long way to painting a picture of the kind of diabolical schemes that go on behind the scenes of West Chester politics—of which Lakota is a major player.

It’s not like Lakota tried—they simply refused—just like Obama and the gang is doing now on Capitol Hill–to deal with reality.  They simply ignore any part of reality that doesn’t fit their version of it.  As government entities, they have their agenda, and their expectations—and they will only listen to options that fulfill their agenda—which is why they fail time and time again.  Have a look:

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/12/30/westchesterbuzz-coms-top-12-stories-of-2012-no-1/

In the course of early March 2012 The Enquirer decided to get into bed with the Lakota school district and the evidence is in their priorities of what they consider to be the “biggest story of the year.”  But nowhere is there any mention of “WHY” Lakota has a budget problem.  The article only mentions the result, not the cause, which is typical of these big government types.  The reason is because Lakota employees make too much money, and there are too many of them.  Pure and simple.  The education market is changing, there are many options that are better for teaching children, and government schools are clamoring to keep themselves relevant just as the Postal System is trying to stay relevant after the advent of EMAIL.  Public schools are trying to fulfill a progressive utopian vision of being the central figures in society, and the newspapers are obviously on board to help paint that picture—which is why The Enquirer has been losing readership by the droves and more and more people are turning to alternative sources of information like this blog, for their news.  People see the situation for what it is, and 18,000 people voted against the foolishness of the Lakota district, and the many thousands of tax payer dollars they have spent on public relations—to help set up articles in publications like The Enquirer and The West Chester Buzz. 

As The West Chester Buzz published their top story of 2012 article a levy supporter sent me an email stating, “No Lakota Levy seems to indicate that the teaching staff is paid too much and now the community is unable to afford such salaries.   I contend that the labor force is overworked and, for it to consider any further concessions, that group needs to be thanked for their steadfast service of the past and encouraged to work a normal 8 hour day rather than devoting hours of free labor to a district that can no longer afford such dedication.”  That statement, which the newspapers should be covering, cites the entire funding problem at Lakota, and in just about every government employee in The United States.  They have all lost touch with reality and have a sickness rooted in neuroses.  They simply aren’t working within the realms of reality—and therefore cannot be rationed with.  “Thanked,” what are these school employees—children?  Or worse—not even possessing the ability to retain information like simple dogs begging for food.

How can any sane person claim that an employee making 65K per year should not be expected to work 10 or 11 hours a day or more, and that such people are “overworked.”  The average income for Lakota employees is 63K per year, which is very good compensation, but the trouble is, it’s not competitive.  In the argument over what makes a good teacher or a bad teacher the public is supposed to take the word of labor radicals like the guy who sent me that comment at face value without validating the truth.  In my book his comment doesn’t even deserve a seat at the table because I don’t recognize his right to exist.  I have determined that the biggest problem in public schools is the labor unions who utter that kind of garbage, and there is no discussing anything with them.  They are like speaking to hungry dogs who only wag their tails if food comes near their mouths.  They are not the pinnacles of our society as The Enquirer has tried to make them out to appear.  They are simply parasites hungry for more government expansion, mindlessly higher taxes, and more youth seduced by all the wrong things to be cast out ill-prepared into adulthood. The labor argument in this case has a monopoly on education and the government backs that monopoly, and until that organization is broken up, there will never be cost reductions in education, there will never be improved test scores, and there will never be great leaps in social advancement.  The problem with government schools and their monopoly is the fact that there are no options for parents to have their child taught by ambitious teachers making only 45K per year over the one making 90K per year who is tired and beat up—hanging on till their retirement at 55 years old.  The tax money in the State of Ohio is sent to the school, not to the child, and that is the source of the problem allowing labor unions to basically control that tax money.  The system is ridiculous, and the press has not had the backbone to do their job—which is a disservice to everyone.

People say that all the things I’ve said above are “just politics.”  It’s just the way things are, and they will never change.  Well, it might be politics, but like I told one of my employers years ago, “politics costs money.”  If you remove the politics, you will save millions.  And the same holds true for Lakota and every other public school—remove the politics, and they will be able to balance their budget without being leeches on the rest of the community constantly hitting up the residents for more tax increases.  Lakota needs competition, and the press needs to get out of the business of helping to support destructive monopolies, which The West Chester Buzz confirmed is the role of The Cincinnati Enquirer in regard to Lakota.  For myself, and many on my side, the “labor argument” doesn’t even deserve a place at the negotiating table.  I don’t care what they think; they are no different then dogs begging for food to me.  They don’t offer a service I think is important, and they charge too much to provide it.  They need to be cut out of the money stream completely and that is my 2013 position.  Apparently, the media is going to settle for their role to be mere lap dogs, to the dogs begging for food at the bargaining table where the feast of West Chester is in control of the adults sitting at the table.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

“Good Cops” and “Bad Cops”: Becoming a Leathal Weapon for the freedom movement

Oh, it’s nice to get started on 2013. It’s wonderful to wake up in the morning and be free…………..

As the rest of the world is falling off the “fiscal cliff” I am feeling the freedom for the first time in many years to be able to fully speak my mind without being concerned about representing large numbers of people in my community. When I woke up one year ago on New Years Day 2012 Obama had just signed the NDAA Act, and I realized that things were going to get ugly, and the freedom movement needed to get down in the dirt and fight harder. So I was looking for a divorce—not from my wife of course–but from the people attached to me that wanted me to play “Good Cop” in the public debate against progressive radicalism. Nothing against those people connected to me but they had the wrong strategy against progressives. Instead, I saw the very real need to have a “Bad Cop” in the debate over public education and the many progressive intrusions on daily American life, and I wanted to be that “Bad Cop,” and I needed a separation from the old role to do it.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.

Being a “Bad Cop” is not the same as being a “bad guy.” But when dealing with people who have no understanding of their community imposition, of the tyranny of their collectivism, of their advocating gigantic government intrusions it is needed to have a “good cop” who will speak to the media and play the game the way progressives do, but there is a need for a “bad cop” to do all the things that the “good cop” can’t. Progressives have a lot of “Bad Cops” out there functioning fully, so the liberty movement deserves the same armament, and I wanted the role as far back as last year, primarily because the Lakota levy was gearing up for another try, and NDAA was signed into law.

The freedom I feel is similar to ending a job that one hates when you realize you don’t have to go to that particular building again and speak to all the people you didn’t like there. It’s like ending a relationship that was dysfunctional, but endured because of prior obligations. Once those obligations are fulfilled, you might be free to pursue another path leaving your mind free for the first time in a long time. For the last two or three years while representing many moderate personalities in Southwestern Ohio on issues raging from the Lakota levy attempts, to the Right-to-Work campaign in Ohio, to all the media contacts I had to maintain—I was constantly aware of what I said and to whom I said it. I had to be otherwise my ability to do radio interviews and get coverage in the newspapers and television would be limited as they tend not to cover radicals if they are on the political right—even though they do cover radicals on the political left. This left me always feeling like I was fighting a battle with my arms behind my back, and I was getting sick of it as 2012 dawned one year ago, only to see that government had a controversial new law that directly violated the Fifth Amendment, signed by the President on New Years Eve in the faraway land of Hawaii. Watching that progress it didn’t take long for me to realize that the liberty movement needed its own “bad cops” to counter all the goof-ball radicals advancing progressive causes at the expense of us all.

Now with 2013, I am free to act as I see fit without the burden of political correctness, which will be necessary to solve the problems that we are facing in America. I mean look at our dismal situation, a national debt of over $16 trillion dollars, a dysfunctional government, a communist president, radical teacher unions controlling the thoughts and lives of our children—and a whole slew of tax increases that will hit us all—at least those of us who already pay taxes. We are not in a good situation. Yes—I am looking forward to a very colorful year in 2013, one where I won’t hold back as much as I have in the past. Freedom feels good, it fills your lungs with copious amounts of fresh air, and lifts the spirit—and I am free to do what’s right without the restrictions of public sentiment. So to those who thought they had seen the worst—no, not even close. It’s time to shift gears and pick up some steam instead. It’s time for other people to play the “good cop” role, and its time for others to play the newly created “bad cop” role also. It is time to treat progressives as they have treated conservatives for years. The correct strategy with progressives is not with a pat on the ass and bribery whispered into their ears, but to treat them like dog shit that is found on the bottom of a worker’s boots. Starting in 2013, I have in my hand a scrapper ready to make sure the heel of my boots stay clean as I do my work. And it feels good!

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Review of ‘The Old Republic’: An Amazing Game produced in an Amazing Time

I had said that I was going to reward myself for all the hard work I did in 2012 and celebrate the first quarter release of my new book Tail of the Dragon.  Typically authors in my position might take a cruise to the Mediterranean, or schedule a few weeks in Hawaii to celebrate the conclusion and release of their novels but I had stated that I was going to do something different, I was going to invest in a video game that my wife and I had been eager to play for all of the last year, but didn’t have time–or to be honest–the machines to properly play them on.  Instead of an external vacation, we were planning to go on an internal one by playing the very involved MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is the latest creation of Bioware, LucasArts, and Electronic Arts with a production budget of over $200 million dollars.  The Old Republic MMO is the very latest of its kind following along the tradition of World of Warcraft, and the popular, Guild Wars.  MMO’s are very involved, all-encompassing, and can be very complicated.  There are a lot of computer calculations that are made per second with people from all over the world playing at the same time as you are, so they require computer systems that can operate at peak performance all the time, and that required me to make a major computer upgrade just to play for myself.  However, for my wife to play with me, it would require two supercharged computer systems, so after the fourth quarter sales closed on my Tail of the Dragon and with the help of my son-in-law, we built two specially designed, eight core processor, 75 Watt power-driven monsters for a few thousand dollars just to play The Old Republic which is very graphics intensive, and at times stunning to behold, especially if you love Star Wars like we do, enjoying the story lore with great reverence.

For kids who have grown up with MMOs–who have been over 13 years old since Play Station 2 came out, I think they are missing the wonder of these modern games.  I have read some of their reviews of Star Wars: The Old Republic before making my purchases, and I think they have the attention span of a nat.  Their expectations in the field of gaming are unreasonably high, which of course can never be satisfied completely by anybody.  Because of my schedule being as intense as it had been for many years, the only type of video gaming I had time for were X-Box 360 classics like Red Dead Redemption, Dragon Age, also from BioWare, and an old X-Box game that my wife and I loved to play together called Gladius, which was an RPG co-op–an early design that has obviously carried over into Old Republic.  My family, meaning my kids, my wife, and my extended nephews played Star Wars: Galaxies a lot, and World of Warcraft, but I never had the time to play with them, and found it irritating that most of the MMO’s did not have a way for players to co-op in story mode in the way that Gladius had, so I stayed away and my wife never invested much time because of it.  This problem has been fixed in Star Wars: The Old Republic, which allows two separate players to do just about everything together, with two totally different storylines—and the way that BioWare pulled this off now that my wife and I have played it for over a week both day and night is nothing short of a technical miracle.  For the kids who want the kind of story content available in The Old Republic, to go on forever, they are deeply unrealistic.  There is no video game on the market today that is as deeply story driven as The Old Republic, and everything is absolutely epic in scope.  For people like me who grew up watching the original Star Wars movies in a movie theater when they were first released, and had to wait almost an entire decade for the ability to watch those movies at home on a LaserDisk—well before VHS video tape or DVD’s, the work that has went into The Old Republic is a small miracle.

My wife is playing as a Jedi Counselor and I am playing as a Jedi Knight, and The Old Republic allows us to both play our stories in a co-op mode that is just stunning in its conception.  If all married couples could find something like Old Republic to do together, I think the divorce rate in America would drop off the chart putting many lawyers out of business—because the game is simply wonderful in its co-op play.  For instance, my wife and I got up at 5:30 AM on Saturday December 30th after playing the game intensely for 5 consecutive days, and we logged into the game on our two monster computers, each of them being cooled down by 5 internal fans just to keep the video card temperature down.  We logged off the game at midnight that same day and went to bed but were up again 5 hours later to follow the same routine on Sunday and Monday.  The story content is very intense, and every couple of hours of play there is a major climax in the action similar to most movies, where there is a plot driven introduction, a series of problems that must be overcome, then a resolution to conclude that portion of the story.   In one instance on the capital planet of Coruscant—which is absolutely stunningly rendered in the game—I had convinced a member of the Senate who I had caught doing a lot of double-dealing between the criminal underworld, and the people’s business of the Senate, to resign.  She offered me a lot of money to keep her name clean, which of course I didn’t take—just like in real life—and forced her to come clean with her resignation.  The Senator in question was not a bad person, or evil in any way.  She was doing what she felt she needed to do politically, but she had crossed the line and lost her way, and it was my job to make sure she stayed clean.  In the world of Star Wars that is the job of a Jedi Knight—a defender of the Republic from not just countless hoards of bad guys, but from the corruption that is indicative in politics.  Jedi are a great plot device that fills a need that is indicative in all democratic republics, such as what The United States is facing with unbridled corruption within politics.  Jedi are the stabilizing spiritual force that keeps everyone honest and reminds me of the kind of philosophical leader that Plato had in mind in his book The Republic.  The Old Republic as a video game excels at giving players those types of moral dilemmas every few hours of game play and so far, my wife and I have over 70 hours each invested, and we haven’t even scratched the surface of the sheer amount of content that is available.

The servers we are playing on were all full much of the time we have been on the game, so it looks like Electronic Arts strategy of offering a free-to-play option worked.  Lots of people are flocking to the game, and on the worlds especially like Coruscant, there were many people running around just like any major city.  They were everywhere, even in the most far-flung corners of that particular planet.  But my wife and I are subscribers and proud to be.  I saw that Amazon.com was offering The Old Republic for $14 dollars which will allow people to play under a preferred status.  BioWare is offering the game for a free download off the web site.  But I personally think they should sell the game for over $200 each, because it’s worth it.   The game is that good.  It simply dwarfs similar games that are console driven.  The computer programming alone to make planets like Coruscant or the space port of The Republic Fleet look so great is mind-blowing.   In fact, when my wife and I arrived at the Republic Fleet Space Port we were slammed in the face by the sheer size and scope of the place, the countless video advertisements, the street vendors, the sights, the sounds, it reminded me a lot of a real life Las Vegas where you can’t help but look out the window at the scope of creativity put forth by the human mind in the rows and rows of theme driven hotels and resorts.  Star Wars: The Old Republic is loaded with these kinds of bewildering scenes leaving many hours of discovery open to any diligent gamer.

The Old Republic is simply an amazing game that exceeds all my expectations and then some.  I was a tremendous fan of the previous two X-Box games called Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Republic II but The Old Republic MMO is in my opinion the best game I have ever played.  It’s also been the nicest vacation I’ve ever been on, and I’ve been on a lot of good ones.  My wife and I have been having so much fun that we forgot to eat but two complete meals during the entire previous weekend.  We were so wrapped up in what we were doing that we didn’t want to go into the kitchen to get food.  Instead we ordered Chinese and took 10 minutes to go and pick it up.   Once when our shoulders were getting stiff from sitting in the same position for about 15 straight hours we sat in the hot tub for an hour to loosen up, then we went back at it for another 5 hours before going to bed.  I don’t know of any place that a couple can go and have that much fun and be clean as a whistle, and still be deeply satisfying physically, emotionally, and intellectually.  The Old Republic has all the intellectual stimulation of a great novel, all the visual dazzle of a blockbuster motion picture, but all the strategic satisfaction of the most intense simulation games.   In fact, at times it reminds me of a favorite game my wife and I used to play when we were first married called Star Wars: Assault on Hoth, which was a board game of sorts that was a role-playing adventure similar to Dungeons and Dragons.  This was well before computer games were anywhere close to where they are now, in fact LucasArts biggest title back then was a game I played all the time on an Atari 7200 called Ball Blazer.  That should put things in the proper time frame.  She and I would play Assault on Hoth three or four times a week popping a bowl of popcorn and going to war together on the paper landscape.  Many years later we would introduce our children to similar war simulation games such as Wiz Kids wonderful Pirates series (CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW MUCH WE ARE INTO THAT).  So we are used to playing these kinds of intense strategy games as a family, and The Old Republic is simply every bit as good as I’m saying it is.  It is the pinnacle of the gaming genre to date.  There is nothing like it, and it may be a long time before something close to it comes again.  The production values that went into the game are unusually over-the-top and not likely to be seen again.  The cost to produce as much content as BioWare did with The Old Republic is just prohibitive.  That is an economic reality that few who play games understand.

I anticipate that my wife and I will stay on this vacation well into the summer, so if my readers here wonder why I seem more reclusive than normal, and difficult to contact, or to pull commitments out of, blame it on The Old Republic.  I haven’t turned on a television in over a week, and have only casually scanned news reports, so the benefit of the vacation has been effective in this case.  There are few things that could divert my mind as effectively as something so intellectually stimulating as The Old Republic.  It is a miracle of the modern age and I cherish every moment I get to play it.  It is worth the thousands of dollars I spent just to play the game and then some.  It is a lifetime experience that my wife and I will never forget.

As for those who wonder why I’m on this type of vacation and would choose to put my energy into this kind of fictional endeavor as opposed to something more, “real,” well, all I can say is that you’d have to read the great novel Atlas Shrugged to get the full idea of why I’m on this particular journey with my wife and not out there in the world building hotels, playing politics, or starting new forms of revenue.  In many ways, The Old Republic is my own form of Galt’s Gulch.  What I earn there stays with me forever—even if it’s just a memory.   It’s my memory, and one that I can share with my wife.  And to me, nothing else matters. 

Elections have consequences…….but they don’t force people to participate in a fools game, and that is what modern politics offers.  Atlas Shrugged was right all along.  The Old Republic is my personal Gulch and I’m thankful to have it.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com